If you've ever thought about joining a CrossFit gym, it's important to understand what CrossFit is and, maybe more importantly, what it isn’t.
Sometimes when people are first exposed to CrossFit, it might be through the sport of fitness or the CrossFit Games. As a CrossFit gym owner, this is one of the first things I want to address.
We let newcomers know we are doing the CrossFit fitness programme, not the CrossFit Games. Distinguishing between the two right away makes CrossFit accessible to everyone. The great thing about CrossFit is it's inclusive of all fitness modalities that work. If a movement or exercise is functional and aids your fitness, we include it in our programme.
The downfall to many fitness programmes is they can be very specialised. For example, we believe running is great. But running alone can’t be your only tool for fitness because it just can’t get you to your ultimate goal. Weightlifting is great and we incorporate it into our programme. But just like running, it can’t be the only thing you do to get fit.
With CrossFit, we are trying to specialise in NOT specialising.
We can achieve true fitness while minimising risk of injury by becoming above average at as many disciplines as possible. Our classes have people of all ages — from 10 to 75 years old — because everything we do can be scaled to your fitness level.
The great thing about CrossFit is we are always analysing the efficacy of our programme by testing many different combinations of movements in workouts to see if we are staying true to the definition of fitness. Fitness is defined as increased work capacity across broad time, modal and age domains. The best prescription to get there is CrossFit!
Again, if it works, we include it in our programme. If we find out something needs to be added to the programme, we add it. By doing this over time, CrossFit becomes more and more robust. It can also be a lot of fun.
Matthew Barnett and his wife, Tarasa Barnett, are co-founders of CrossFit Cayman, in Camana Bay. For further information on the gym or how CrossFit Cayman can assist you in your fitness journey, email matt@crossfitcayman.com or call (345) 929-8450.
This article was originally featured in the April 2023 print edition of Camana Bay Times.